www.earthfiles.de

[Solve et Coagula]

THE COUNTDOWN TO WAR

Paul Rogers
6 - 4 - 2006

The timing and nature of a United States attack on Iran can be gauged by a close look at air traffic and base security in western England.

In the months before the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, most commentators expected that the developing crisis would end in some kind of diplomatic settlement, and that war would be averted. But not everyone took this view, and a few specialists attempted to assess the likely outcome of the United States's infliction of "regime termination" on Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Among them were some experienced analysts at the US army war college, who pointed to the difficulties of any post-war occupation and the probability of an insurgency developing against occupying troops.

The views of such dissidents (a term appropriate in the context of the overwhelming balance of opinion at the time) were ignored, and the Iraq war went ahead with the results now evident in the daily stories of shattered lives and polarised communities.

Today's equivalents of the more sober and far-sighted analysts of Iraq in 2002-03 are equally clear about the consequences of a war with Iran. Indeed, several studies suggest that Iran's military capability to create problems for the United States and any coalition partners might make the outcome there even more violent (see "Iran, the real focus", 16 February 2006).

Iran's ability to react, especially in terms of asymmetric warfare undertaken at a distance, is likely to be far more potent than that of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, with recent reports from the United States supporting the view that paramilitary attacks would extend beyond the middle east (see Dana Priest, "Attacking Iraq May Trigger Terrorism", Washington Post, 2 April 2006).

Continue to read:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict/countdown_3426.jsp